History of Caching (Cache)

“Caches aren’t architecture, they’re just optimization.”
— Rob Pike

In the storage option, we usually choose one of either size or speed, the prime example is SSD vs HDD. The hard disk offers a much larger capacity while SSD provides much faster performance.

Histories of cache invention

Arthur Burks and Herman Goldstine were crucial figures in developing the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), one of the first electronic general-purpose computers.

In 1946, Burks and Goldstine recognized that the speed of the computer’s operations was limited by the time it took to access the main memory, which was a slow and cumbersome process. To address this problem, they proposed the use of a small high-speed memory unit, which they called a “cache”, that could hold frequently used data and instructions closer to the processor for faster access.

In the 1960s, The Atlas supercomputer was a pioneering machine that was designed and built in the UK. It was one of the world’s first supercomputers and was used for a wide range of scientific and engineering applications.

The Atlas machine had a unique memory hierarchy that included several levels of cache. The first level of the cache was a small high-speed buffer located on the processor chip, which held frequently accessed data and instructions. This was followed by a larger secondary cache, which was used to store data and instructions that…